


The Devil Comes Callin'

by randi2204



Series: Honeymoon Trail [4]
Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crossdressing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randi2204/pseuds/randi2204
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vin and Nathan answer Chris's wire and are just in time to be a little too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil Comes Callin'

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: They belong to MGM, Mirisch and Trilogy, not me. I think they're glad.

Vin didn’t have the first clue as to _why_ Ezra came up with his plan.  Maybe it had made a little sense – if there was a damn thing in this world that would cause that crazy hell-cat woman to come running, it would be word of Chris getting married again.  Hell, he could even understand why Ezra was offering to stand in as Chris’s bride, because the reasons he gave all rang true.

 

The thing was, he couldn’t see why Chris had _agreed_.  Made him wonder whether Chris was the man he’d always thought, because it didn’t seem like the man he knew would want to take on all the pain waiting for him under Ezra’s plan, dredging up memories that were better left to lie.

 

But Chris wasn’t listening and Vin knew his mind was fixed on the end, not the middle, the end of it all, when he got revenge on that witch who had done him so wrong.  So he shook his head and walked away, because nothing was going to shift Chris from that path; he knew it as well as he knew himself.

 

 _Still,_ he thought, fingers tapping against his thigh in time with the rumbling clatter of the train, _don’t mean I ain’t gonna back up my friends… even if one of ‘em’s gone off the rails and taken the other with him._

 

The train pulled into the depot, jerking and swaying and hissing out steam as it creaked to a halt.  When it was still, he and Nathan stood, stretching as much as they could in the cramped carriage.  The muscles in Vin’s back protested the movement, aching from too many long hours and miles sitting without relief.

 

On the platform, they paused, looking up and down the crowded street and trying to spot a landmark, _something_ that would help them find Chris and Ezra in this bustling, too-busy place.

 

“You remember the name of the hotel they were supposed to stay at?” Vin asked.  Gingerly, he settled his kit over his shoulder.

 

“Yeah.”  Nathan’s brow furrowed in concern as he continued looking around.  “I think we’re gonna have a time findin’ it, though.”

 

“Prob’ly right on that,” he muttered, and stepped off the platform.

 

The sun was sinking and the light was tinged late afternoon red by the time they found the right street.  Vin walked beside Nathan, looking up at the mishmash of letters on the signs and trying to decipher the ones that meant “hotel.”

 

“There, that’s the one,” Nathan said at last, pointing out a fancy looking establishment on the far side of the street, one that Vin had no doubt Ezra had picked.

 

They entered the hotel, kicking the muck off their boots as they did, and crossed to the clerk who stared disapprovingly at their dusty clothes from behind his counter.  “Howdy,” Vin said, smiling.  “We got a wire from a friend, said he was stayin’ here.” He fished the telegram from inside his coat, laid it on the counter.  “Chris Larabee still here?”

 

The man relented some at the sight of the telegram and opened the hotel register.  “Yes, Mister and Missus Larabee are in room 215.” Then he frowned.  “How strange.”

 

Vin, having turned toward the stairs, glanced back over his shoulder.  “We didn’t just miss ‘em, did we?”

 

The man looked up in surprise.  “No, no… but as far as I knew, Mister and Missus Larabee were sharing a room.  I just saw Missus Larabee had taken another room, which struck me as odd, as she said they were on their honeymoon…”

 

Vin looked at Nathan, saw the same realization in his face as he felt, and then they were racing for the stairs, pounding up them to the second floor, heedless of the clerk’s shouts behind them.

 

Nathan’s long legs let him take the stairs two and three at a time, so he was ahead when they hit the second floor.  They hadn’t taken two strides down the corridor when three shots rang out, two almost as one, the third but a heartbeat behind.  Doors started opening all along the hallway, amid shrieks and cries for the sheriff.

 

The door to room 215 stood open.  Vin peered around the doorframe, saw Chris kneeling on the floor beside a figure in a dress.  “Chris?” he called low.

 

Chris spun to face the door, scrabbling at his empty holster for a moment before he recognized Vin and Nathan.  His fingers were coated in blood, Vin noticed, heart thudding faster in his chest, and his gun lay on the floor near the door.  “She shot him,” Chris said, voice flat, and that pulled Nathan inside in a hurry.

 

Vin followed him in, saw another figure in a dress slumped against the wall, weeping.  Long dark hair framed Ella Gaines’ fine features, and blood stained her white sleeve, her hand where she had it clamped to the wound.  In between her sobs, Vin could just barely make out a few words, mostly “Chris” and “Why?”  Shuddering at the sickness in the woman, he had to turn away.

 

Ezra lay on the floor, blood darkening the front of his dress. A tangle of hair was trapped beneath his head – a wig, Vin realized.  The derringer he kept up his sleeve had fallen from his fingers, near where Chris still knelt beside him.  Chris’s face was almost as pale as Ezra’s, and he never even glanced at Ella where she huddled on the floor, just kept his eyes on Ezra as Nathan ripped up the bodice of the dress, searching for where the bullet had entered his body.

 

Vin dragged his bags in from where he’d dropped them in the hall, and pulled a length of rope from inside.  Without much care, he wrapped it around Ella’s wrists then jerked her to her feet.  She let out a cry as it jarred her injured arm, but Vin ignored her.

 

“Gonna take her to the sheriff,” he said, frowning a little when Chris didn’t seem to have heard him.  “Chris, you hear me?”

 

Chris’s eyes wandered up from Ezra’s still form, and in that moment, Vin knew.  His features softened.  “I’m takin’ her to the sheriff,” he repeated, more softly this time.

 

Chris nodded, immediately turned his gaze back to Ezra.

 

Vin took a breath, his hand still wrapped around Ella’s arm, then shoved her out the door, hardening himself to her tears.  He didn’t bother to look back, because he knew Chris wasn’t going to be following.

 

 _We caught her, sure,_ he thought, pulling her as she stumbled along behind him, _but now… whether or not Ezra makes it, for Chris the price was too high._

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt at [mag7daybook](http://mag7daybook.dreamwidth.org) at Dreamwidth. The prompt was: Any characters, OW, they’d finally caught up with Ella, but the price wasn’t worth it.


End file.
